Some facts and discussion about Governor Gary Locke of Washington, who gave the Democrat response to the State of the Union address - and will be a vice presidential candidate - you heard it here first - (and laughed I'm sure). The links in order 1 2 3 4

How about directing SDI "star wars" money toward NASA? Why? Because NASA gives dreams to millions of people. I could stop there and that would be enough because there are so few things in the world left that will do that.

Sports? All about the money. (LeBron James???)
Parents? Well they are only as good as their sources and their own role-models.
President? _____________________

SDI, some might say, prevents nightmares. No, it is highly impractical. More impractical than living on the moon.

And don't forget the Space Stations - people live there now, though of course they need Earth.

What about, instead of SDI, we instead foster peace. That's a good defense too, in general.

By other worlds, I may have spoken too literally. I was talking about what we can learn from different worlds - scientifically. And no, I truly don't believe we'll ever live on another planet. I misspoke. But what we can learn from other planets/stars/objects - that is valuable.

NASA is one true agency that has stayed pure to its stated goals. Sure it is also used to lift spy satellites and who knows what else - but everyone involved can be proud. They have never had anything to be ashamed of.

On my list of priorities for what a country can do - NASA is at the top.

SHUTTLE FACTIODSFrom Space TodayActually, some illuminating information as well. Including that after the Challenger disaster the remaining shuttles had 250 modifications. Including the fact that Columbia was "cannibalized" in 1987 for parts for Discovery and Atlantis. Columbia was completely rebuilt in 1989.

PS liked the comment over at DeanEsmay, "he's too long retired to get leaned on. Most likely Powell just called up and said, Hey, what are you doing to me?"
PPS. It's Cheney on the far left (hah) in this photo. I trust you've got the other two.

Go to the story. There are all kinds of other revealing numbers. Go also to the Prime Minister's official site, which exhibits an even more pro-war position than Whitehouse.gov. Remember, Tony Blair's Labour party was Margaret Thatcher's opposition party.

UPDATE 00:41 - ABC has it. BBC had it before FOX. CNN has it now, but not on the front page, not even a link. But it should be note their report is not AP like the others.

CNN report:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CNN) -- At least eight people are dead after a land mine destroyed a bus in southern Afghanistan.

According to Afghan army commander Khan Mohammed Khan, the Friday incident struck 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Kandahar in the Juhlaman district, when the bus ran over the mine on the road. Other details were not immediately available.

So far there have been no claims of responsibility, although local police are blaming Taliban or al Qaeda fighters.

Khan blamed Taliban remnants and forces loyal to Gulbedin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister during the civil war of the early 1990s.

Hekmatyar is an Islamic fundamentalist who later took refuge in Iran and now, according to Afghan and U.S. intelligence sources, has sided with Taliban and al Qaeda units to fight American troops.
-- CNN producer Lonzo Cook contributed to this story

They tell a tale of how Gulf War troops in 1991 buried alive Iraqi troops and then when a group of journalists was on a tour, tried to dent it. But one guy, who was very familiar with the stench and the sights of the Vietnam killing fields was suspicious and started asking questions.

It wasn't until late in the afternoon of Feb. 25 that the press pool was permitted to see where the attack occurred. There were groups of Iraqi prisoners. About 2,000 had surrendered. But there were no bodies, no stench of feces that hovers on a battlefield, no blood stains, no bits of human beings. "You get a little firefight in Vietnam and the bodies would be stacked up like cordwood," Daniel said. Finally, Daniel found the Division public affairs officer, an Army major.

And my point here? Not that war is ugly - duh - but that we are not so morally superior as we may think we are. That's why we need to prove a CONCRETE case against Iraq. Right now we've just got the mix being stirred by the machine.

Of course, it mocks any possible position any politician could stand with - on both sides, but especially those against a war.

And above it all, is Safire, later being able to say, I told you that's what they'd say about ANY politician. That's a bad column, boys and girls.

It ends with this incorrect comparison of likely results of either position. Yuck:

The point is this: Both sides of the debate are furiously positioning to cover themselves in case the other side proves right. But the difference is this: Even if the hawks are wrong about Saddam's treachery, 20 million terrified Iraqis would be freed. If the doves are wrong and their delay enables the genocidal tyrant to become a world power, millions of American lives could well be lost.

Moved Rebecca Blood out of the Seattle blogger category (because I found out she's not, its SF for her) and because I'll still tune in.

Also, is there a painful answer to the question I have when I view my site stats. Many of them say they visited for zero seconds. Could I have turned them off that quickly?

Also these guys, SecureNet, just visited me. The first paragraph on their page put a lump in my throat - though obviously for no good reason. I'm just a (thinking) doof with a blog.
SecureNet, Inc. is a privately owned and operated security system integrator and installation contractor. SecureNet designs and installs security solutions utilizing the finest product lines in the electronic security marketplace.

Just on the words, I'd say Gov. Locke did extremely well. All reports are, however, is that words don't count. It's how he looked, and he looked and sounded weak? Oh well, there's some thinking for you.

UPDATE 11:35. An excerpt from Gov. Locke. Most people simply WILL NOT believe the truth:

We have another urgent priority: homeland security. In this unprecedented fight against terror, the front lines are in our own neighborhoods and communities. This one hits home. In 1999, an al-Qaida operative tried to enter my state with a trunk full of explosives. Thankfully, he was caught just in time. Now, a year and a half after Sept. 11, America is still far too vulnerable. Last year Congress authorized $2.5 billion in vital new resources to protect our citizens - for equipment for firefighters and police, to protect ports, to guard against bioterrorism, to secure nuclear power plants and more. It's hard to believe, but President Bush actually refused to release the money. Republicans now say we can't afford it. The Democrats say: If we're serious about protecting our homeland, we can and we must.

UPDATE 11:36. It's sad that so many [online bloggers] will take their que from Instapundit, even though he offered no serious analysis or actually made sense.
Just what does this mean

From what I've seen, Bush did pretty well on Iraq, and got a passing grade (with perhaps an extra point or two for audacity) on the domestic side. However, if you grade on the curve with Gary Locke plugged in, he gets an A[?????????]. (Andrew Sullivan would give Bush an A outright.) What I saw of Locke in the playback looked weak, and others seem to agree. He came across like a city councilman. Not a bad city councilman, but not somebody ready for primetime at the national level, at least not yet.

Not read for primetime? Was there anything about what he said? Scratch below the surface, dude. Everyone. Keep the inspectors there. If they are doing what they are doing now there will be no progress on any weapons program in Iraq.

I don't have time to look up these people - wish I'd found it earlier. The seat left open is for the victims of Sept. 11. Pleeeeeeeeeease. THEY DID NOT DO THIS IN THE 2002 ADDRESS. See people didn't need to be reminded of his "greatest moment" then. Now? Well, there haven't been any great moments since then.

It's make or break time. I think it'll be "break" to Hawks and to anyone who is truly honest with themselves. The Rove administration has already started the cult of low expectations. That's because George Bush Junior can't step up to the plate and deliver.

PS Just try and find last year's State of the Union at WhiteHouse.gov. It's on the site but I had to Google "text 2002 state union" instead. But there are a lot of bells and whistles but not much of substance. Yes, the correlation to "Reagan's Son" is obvious.

MY ANTICIPATED REACTION
I will revise this if necessary. But I'm going to be out tonight.

There used to be a cartoon series in England, Captain Pugwash, with characters, Master Bates, Seaman Stains, and Roger the Cabin Boy. It was, ahem, quickly pulled. PS, damn, just looking for a link I found out his was a "myth." Still... .

UPDATE 4:42 - I have to disagree with the last line:
Mr. Locke is not known as a dynamic speaker. When asked how he felt approaching Tuesday's speech, the biggest political moment of his life, he said, "Yikes!"

Well, dynamic as in "rousing the crowd." - no he' s not. Effective? Yes, as I indicated above. Biggest political moment in his life. I'd lay bets it was actually becoming governor.

And seriously, what point did I miss that was covered in the NY Times article? And I made it sound more interesting.

PS: a handy dandy tip. Subscribe to NY Times now and get their e-mail updates. The links from there do not die and do not get archived into the "premium" section. Unlike those from visiting the site. Strange but true. I still have NY Times e-mail updates from 2001. Boom, they go straight to the stories as do more recent ones.

Go here for a clue. I'm letting others speak for me right now because it's late and it wasn't just a highball of Coke and whiskey I had - i'm downing a pint. The whiskey in question btw is 8-year-old Bell's extra special - Scottish. And , yes, I do feel a little guilty mixing it with, not even Coke, but Pepsi - it was left over from my sister-in-law. It was the only thing to do.

... from Howie Kurtz transcript, the intro: HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: The stars speak out against war in Iraq. Are the media minimizing the movement by booking Hollywood celebrities instead of anti-war organizers? Actress Janeane Garofalo says absolutely.

haaaaa haaaaaaaaa - and I Iove Janeane (oh, yes I do), don't get me wrong. But this was flat out funny.
Kurtz, he's no Bob Woodward, but like Avis, he tries harder. (This would have worked better if Media Whores Online had functioning archives. Woodward was the Media Whore of the Year, see.)

What followed was a sordid tale. And look where it's taken us.
@@ image stolen from Bartcop from wherever he found it.
And no, in answer to your question., I just took the first sip of a whiskey and coke.
Estimated Prophet, EP for short, is a thinker. He gets all the usual reading we all do but he goes beynd the obvious links and asks you to spend some time at his site -- downloading large mp3s. No, really. He expects you, as I do to sit down and think, actually think about what you're being fed. Not just what you think is right, but what you, by looking into the matter, know is right. You are informed by the web of information. He is much more link generous than I am in his postings.

I am a writer and, in this medium, I like to think I can convince people along the way that I am coherent and cohesive and correct. BTW, I had to write some extra here because I didn't want the nuts swinging to the left of my Locke posting, which I shamelessly plugged to a few sites. I expect one link, maybe two if they can look past the nuts. And if you are transfixed, hypnotised by that swinging, toe tapping and head bobbing - you got some issues baby.

President Bush's recent advice to embattled Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez reflects Bush's cavalier attitude toward constitutional restraints. In the midst of all the political turmoil in Venezuela, Bush, who apparently despises Chavez, aligned himself with his political opponents and called for early presidential elections, with the aim of ousting Chavez from power prior to the end of his six-year term in 2006.

The problem, which Bush apparently didn't think was any big deal, is that the Venezuelan constitution does not allow for the calling of such early elections.

Several months ago, the Bush administration tacitly endorsed a military coup in which Chavez was temporarily ousted from power in favor of army generals who would now be running the country. (Since U.S. files on these things are customarily not opened for at least 30 years, owing to "national security," we may not know until at least 2033 what exactly the U.S. government's role was in the attempted military takeover.) To Bush's apparent dismay, however, the people of Venezuela ousted the military men from political power and restored their democratically elected president to power.

As most everyone knows, Chavez is a died-in-the-wool Marxist socialist, much as Salvador Allende was when he was elected president of Chile in 1970. In 1973, Allende was ousted in a military coup in favor of army general Augusto Pinochet.

While the U.S. government still refuses to open its files on its involvement in the Pinochet coup (despite the lapse of nearly 30 years), many people suspect that the U.S. government, primarily through its agents in the CIA, helped to engineer the military takeover in Chile.

During the succeeding 17 years, Pinochet and his military minions instituted a "war on terrorism" that ending up killing, torturing, and terrorizing thousands of Chilean people, partly through the military tribunals that the Pinochet regime was using for its judicial system.

We might not like it that other countries elect died-in-the wool socialists to office, but why isn't that their democratic right? After all, if the American people have the right to elect such ardent advocates of the socialistic welfare state as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, why shouldn't
the people of other countries have the democratic right to elect Marxist socialists to office?

To put it another way, what moral right does the U.S. government have to interfere with the democratic processes of other countries? Indeed, what moral right does it have to use U.S. taxpayer money to finance foreign political campaigns, which it often does? Isn't it a violation of U.S. law for foreign governments and foreign nationals to interfere with American political campaigns? Doesn't that make the U.S. government vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy?

Moreover, isn't it somewhat embarrassing that our elected officials favor unelected military generals to run the governments of foreign countries? Isn't it also embarrassing that our own president advises foreign rulers to simply ignore the constitutional restraints that their citizenry have imposed upon them?

After all, a constitution is the supreme law of the land that the citizenry have imposed on their public officials to control the exercise of their political power. If public officials can simply ignore those restraints, isn't such omnipotent political power what dictatorship is all about? And isn't the United States supposed to stand against dictatorship, especially when it uses such political devices as a "war on terrorism" to torture, kill, jail, and terrorize innocent people, as the Pinochet regime did?

Unfortunately, as everyone knows, in knowingly and willfully deciding to ignore the provision of the U.S. Constitution that requires him to secure a congressional declaration of war before waging war, Bush is engaged in the very same constitutional misconduct that he advised Chavez to commit.

The good news is that a few days after he advised Chavez to ignore his country's constitution, Bush recanted and called for a referendum instead of new elections in Venezuela. Maybe he'll do the same here before he orders an invasion of Iraq.

The point Smarter and Dean were trying to make, is that rich people and big money support Democrats, and the middle class, small business owners and "real Americans" are the "backbone" of Republican support. It's the Democrats, which is the party of big money, they say.

As I posted in comments over at The Dean's site, you can take good data and make it bad. As he did. Smarter Harper's point was that it is a Democrat at the top of the individual donor's list and Democrat supporters hold the top seven or eight positions.

Great. That is a fact. But here's what that fact doesn't reveal and why Dean and SH draw false conclusions. First those numbers do not include money donated to PACs and lobbyists.Toddle on over to the Top Industry donors Open Secrets page and you get a different, but still highly factual, picture. That picture is that in the 2002 election cycle, Democrats received $183 million from industries (with lawyers at the top for Democrats). Republicans received $467 million. These figures do include PAC and lobbyist money.

True these are not absolute numbers. They represent donations from industries that are "D-leaning" or "R-leaning." But it still shows a wide disparity of big business in favor of Republicans, which has always been the point.

Even if the Democrats do receive large donations from rich people, they are not subservient to them - the Democrats still push to tax the rich. BECAUSE THEY CAN AFFORD IT. The rich seem to realize this overall too.
Go figure.
Also there was no mention of the painfully obvious link on the right of the Open Secrets homepage (at time of posting). The article at the end of the link is titled The House Money Built: House Republicans Reward Top Fund-Raisers with Committee Chairmanships

It begins:

January 16, 2003 | The Republican leadership's new roster of House committee chairmen has ruffled a few feathers on Capitol Hill. Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas) and Speaker Dennis Hastert (Ill.) abandoned the traditional method of choosing chairmen based on seniority and instead favored members who demonstrated both fundraising savvy and party loyalty.

DeLay and Hastert tapped five new members to fill vacant posts on the Armed Services, Resources, Government Reform and Agriculture Committees, as well as the newly-minted Homeland Security Committee. The five new chairmen aren't just any old members, either. They donated a total of more than $1 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee and contributed nearly $500,000 more to House and Senate candidates through their candidate committees and leadership PACs in the 2002 election cycle.